Designing the designers' co-op with Jean Lin

Children of immigrants are often hard workers; they’re under pressure to live up to their parents’ dreams. And it’s often thought that creativity and hard work don’t go hand in hand.

Jean Lin has proven quite the opposite. Growing up in Massachusetts she was aware she came from a different place to her friends. But she credits her different upbringing, one focused on valuing family, hard work, integrity, with her success.

Lin is the founder and gallerist of the downtown NYC design gallery and studio Colony. The designer’s co-op in Tribeca that’s changing the way New Yorkers shop for their interiors. With Colony, her goal is to support and foster independent designers and makers. Unlike traditional galleries, who take a 40% commission, her model is based on a monthly co-op fee (to cover the rent) and a small 15% commission. Then there’s The Designers’ Residency, an incubator program that mentors the next generation of young designers. She’s also authored a book, ‘What We Keep’, published by Abrams last year. It offers advice from artists and designers on the joy and benefits of living with the things you love.

Lin originally moved to New York to train as a fashion designer at Parsons School of Design. She always knew she didn’t quite fit in with the fashion set. It was when she landed on her love for art and design more broadly that her career really started to sing. Fast forward to today and she has taught at Parsons, and guest lectured everywhere from Rhode Island School of Design to Pratt Institute and Tama Art University in Tokyo to name just a few.

Listen in as Vince and Jean discuss working on J Lo’s fashion brand, having the transformative realisation that design is literally everything around us and why it’s better value to buy it once and buy it well.

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